As we approach the halfway point of the 2018 Winter Olympics we are now dealing with an odd new controversy.

For reasons your humble editor doesn’t fully understand, Great Britain is a leader in Skeleton, or high-speed head-first ice tube sledding. It turns out this may have something to do with their ability to bend the rules on helmet and suit design.

Cheating: F

Bending the rules: B

Skeleton: A as it is the only ice tube sliding event your humble considers to be an actual sport.

Hurtling head first down an ice tube on an unsteerable bit of tubing and plastic: B

Great Britain: A-

Mikaela Shiffrin: A+

Collapsing in the snow: A for Adorable.

Giant Slalom: A

Slalom: B-

Super Giant Slalom: A-

Czech Republic’s migraine aura ski suits: F

Mexico’s Day of the Dead ski suits: A+

The fact that whenever a movie visits Mexico, or any place in Central or South America it is always during the Festival of the Dead: C- for cliche.

USA vs Slovenia in hockey: C for choke.

USA Vs Slovakia: A

Event that sounds dirty if you mispronounce it: Women’s Aerials

Women’s Aerials: B

Aerials in general: B

Yuzuru Hanyu: A-

Figure Skating: B-

Ski Jumping: B

Japan’s current performance in a sport it used to dominate: D-

Snowboard Cross: B-

Snowboarding: push still have never tried it.

That’s all for now. More as your humble editors learns it/makes it up.

This report poses some odd problems for your humble editor: The actual Olympics has been fairly boring and what wasn’t boring involved politics and not sports. Although politics is what your humble editor has longed long to avoid, a couple minor exceptions have been made.

Also, one of the things your humble editor has written about before is how young reporters discover old stories that they think are new. In this case, your humble editor has noticed a great deal of attention being given to the “bulges” of men’s luge competitors. This controversy takes your humble editor back to the early days of this bit of nonsense and the first Olympics report card from Nagano in 1998: Look here and scroll down to “Bulbous Naughty Bits”.

Believing the notion that the Olympics is actually about peace and sportsmanship: D-

The return of the North Korean all-woman synchronized creepy cheerleading squad after 14 years: B-

What will happen to the cheerleaders if they talk about what they’ve seen once they get back to Commie Hellhole(tm): F

(Note: According to the AP, part of the previous group of cheerleaders blabbed about the non-Commie Hellhole(tm) nature of the non-Commie Hellhole(tm) world and suddenly disappeared from the world stage. Scroll down a bit here and there’s more information.)

Commie Hellholes(tm): F

The US media officially losing its collective crap over head of Commie Hellhole’s(tm) propaganda group: F

Parade of Athletes:
This year’s Olympics parade of athletes poses an interesting problem in that 1) the Winter Olympics is happening in a place where it’s actually winter, and 2) it’s happening in a place where it’s actually cold. This has had a horrible impact on opening ceremony fashion as many teams were dressed for warmth not style.

Dressing Practically: A

Having to comment on practical dress: D

Athletes in Winter Olympics complaining that it’s cold: C-
(Normally this would be an F but given that the last Winter Olympics was based at a beach resort your humble editor has been forced to adjust things a bit.)

Pita Taufatofua: A Once again he wins the opening ceremony wearing only a grass skirt and body oil.

France: B Simple but stylish. Head band in lieu of hat: C

Finland: Men: A Women F or the Aqua plus vomit jackets.

Korea: Boring

United Korea: A

Korea united under capitalism: A

China imagining a united capitalist Korea: F

North Korea turning South Korea into a communist Shit hole: F

Sanctimony over alleged use of phrase “shit hole”: F

Speeches: F

Eating supper during speeches: A

Pumpkin Gratin: A

Anyone Singing “Imagine”: F for Kill it With Fire. (Imagine there’s no singer/ who sings that song again. / You may say I’m a dreamer / but it would be way awesome. / I hope some day it will be stopped / and the world will be awesome)

The new guy was warned but thought he could handle it. When he came back he appeared to have been handled.

For at least this week, maybe more, we are a colleague down at the school where I work. Because of this we’ve had various substitute teachers rolling in and out of the office. The first was assigned, for his first class, one of the worst classes in junior high school first year. He came back looking worse for the wear but went away with some energy so the day wasn’t as bad as it could have been.

Today there was a bit of confusion as many people rushed in to assist the newest substitute and give him different visions of what he should do. The results were a bit backward from what was expected by the lesson plan that no one seemed to notice. It’s not a fatal problem, but it does complicate speeches and the final exam.

For my part, I’ve been staying out of the mess. My voice would only succeed in complicating things further. I’ll help out with writing exams if necessary but the day to day stuff I leave to people who are much more competent than I am.

Things should start to settle down tomorrow when the first sub comes back. At least, that’s the hope.

I had a few things planned but then I got a free pen and that led me to play with knives.

Because I took a survey, I scored a fee pen from a maker I’ve written about before. I inked it up and played with it a bit but won’t review it yet. (Initial Impressions: Where it’s good it’s very good, but where it’s bad it’s horrid. Also, one thing that looks horrid actually works pretty well.)

One of the problems with it was the aluminum cap didn’t work well with the delrin threads. Because of this I had to apply some silicone grease to make things move smoothly.

Oddly, this made me think I needed to do maintenance on a few knives.

I broke out three of my knives and with two all I did was clean them up and apply a bit of lube. The cheaper one I actually disassembled, cleaned, and lubed I then attempted to put it all back together. This all took longer than I expected as things neither came apart nor went back together smoothly or quickly. It all works now, but it’s cheap enough that it will eventually fall apart. I mostly bought it as something to take apart and tinker with.

Tomorrow I’ll have other things planned. I wonder what I’ll end up doing instead.

I knew that what I was doing was probably a bad idea, but I did it anyway.

We got snow last night but it didn’t do much more than get things wet. I went out to meet a fellow pen addict and minutes before I left, as I was preparing to leave, it started raining. Even though there was a chance of snow, I wore sneakers and a lighter coat.

A few hours later it started to snow. It didn’t cause any train delays and I was able to get home with no problems. The walk from the station was more annoying than wet. The streets were still clear, although snow had begun to build up on lots and cars.

Near our apartment, there is a 30 yard long strip of sidewalk that apparently gets no sunlight this time of year and it still has snow from last week’s snowpocalypse. It also had a thin layer of freshly fallen snow that made the trip down the hill “interesting” at times.

In front of our apartment, a layer of snow reached several feet into the parking lot and the ended abruptly in a clear line as it reached the part of the lot that actually got sunlight.

Today it wasn’t that bad, which is good as I had to do some running. Now I’m hoping for no snow until after Valentine’s Day. (More on that in a future post.)

The guy I wanted was there, but he’d just finished another guy so I ended up with a woman.

This actually ended okay.

A couple weeks ago I got a haircut at my usual place and a woman who’d cut my hair before was in a mood to ignore almost every instruction I gave. The result was a decent hair cut that was much longer than I wanted. This wouldn’t have bothered me that much except they guy who’d cut my hair before had done a great job and she hadn’t.

Today, just over two weeks later, my hair was already starting to look shaggy and since I was in the area I decided to stop by and see if the guy was there. If he wasn’t, I was going to walk past and try again another day.

Luckily he was there and appeared to be finishing with a client. I walked in and was immediately redirected to a woman who walked out of the back room.

This woman had cut my hair a while ago and, as is the tendency of the women in the shop, she’d left it kind of long.

However, this time she seemed to understand what I wanted and did a surprisingly good job.

I kind of wish the other woman had been there, though, so I could show her what to do next time.